Girl of Myth and Legend (31 page)

Each maiden has its own power, its own capabilities. They can conjure images to terrify you, memories to torment you, voices to incapacitate you, demons to rip you apart. No maiden possesses all of these. Nonetheless, you cannot fight this power. Once it has selected its target, you might as well give up.

There is hope: kytaen. They can defeat the maiden, and if a Chosen manages to keep their sanity, they can, too. Maidens are powerful, undeniably, but they can be defeated. Sometimes the victim is too traumatised and kills him or herself anyway, and those who survive may tell their tale with enthusiasm, boastfully almost. You can see the fear in their eyes, though, and you know that if they were to face a maiden again, they would surely fall to despair.

This
maiden is not like that. It hasn’t selected a target. It has selected a vast area. A maiden doesn’t usually attack like this; it usually selects its victims carefully, like a handful of people or even an individual, but never a mass of people such as this. I’ve heard tales of such maidens, but never did I dream I would face one. But what worries me even more is that the rebels seem to have, or at least think they have, control over it, and if they do, for what purpose will they use it?

I look at my keeper, who is gazing at me with barely concealed terror. I can’t blame her for being frightened. Maybe she doesn’t know it, but the Imperium will not come to save her or the others, because this is no ordinary maiden—and surely we will die.

I grab her and pull her away, Jacob following.

‘I don’t know the extent of the capabilities this maiden has,’ I say, ‘but the rebels said they control it. I’ve never heard of that before. Maidens can’t be controlled.’

‘So what are you saying?’ she asks.

‘The rebel said they wanted to cut your strings. I don’t know if that means they want to kill you, but the fact is, a Pulsar is always a maiden’s target, because their energy, their magic, is stronger than anyone else’s. Yet it hasn’t targeted
you
specifically, and you’re not dead. It can’t find you, or it’s not being told to. That means you have a chance to escape.’

We’re nearing the other set of doors in the shrine.

‘Wait!’ Jacob says. ‘We can’t—no, we can’t go outside! W-we’ll, I mean, we’ll
die
!’

‘You think you’re safe in here?’ I say. ‘We have to escape the haze.’

‘How?’ my keeper asks.

‘The same way the rebels apparently came here.’

‘The portal?’

‘It will take us to The Core.’

‘The Core…?’ says my keeper.

‘How did the rebels make it to The Core alive?’ asks Jacob.

‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘But I’m thinking that they didn’t use The Core’s portal.’

‘Then how…?’

‘One of the rebels,’ I begin. ‘They must have someone who can manipulate the trajectory of a portal. I can’t think of another way. It doesn’t matter, though. The portal is our only chance. We have to go.’

My keeper’s eyes widen. ‘We can’t leave my dad!’

‘We have no choice.’

‘Yes we do, and I won’t leave him!’

‘Think about my position!’ I yell back at her, inclining my head towards her. ‘I can’t
protect
you, don’t you understand that?’

‘I-I know… I know… I
know
, but I can’t leave him.’

‘I won’t risk your life for his,’ I say.

‘So now you decide to be my kytaen? Well
listen
to me! We need to get my dad! I will
not
leave without him. We can’t just—’

The shrine shakes, causing the maid to scream. It passes after a moment. My keeper and I stare at one another, comprehending the situation.

‘What happens to him isn’t important,’ I continue in a softer voice. ‘You have to be our only pri—’

‘Then I’ll go get him on my own!’ she exclaims.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! You don’t stand a chance on your—’

‘I probably don’t stand a chance anyway, right?’

I don’t reply.

‘Exactly. So it makes no difference whether I go or not,’ she says, defiant as always. ‘If you want to get me out of here, you have to help me get to my dad. I won’t leave him.’

I sweep my free hand over my hair. Why does she have to make this so difficult? Still, isn’t it more admirable that she’s willing to risk her life for that of her father’s? Yes, she’s putting his life before
my
own, but I am only a kytaen.

I stare at her. I told myself I wouldn’t give my life for hers, and I don’t want to. But I can’t leave her on her own either.

‘I can’t promise I can save him,’ I say.

‘I know.’

‘And you’re sure you want to do this?’

‘Yes.’

I nod my head slowly. ‘All right then.’

‘Jacob,’ she says, ‘stay here. You’ll be safer with her.’ She gestures to Corlia, who is trying to calm Matthew.

Jacob shakes his head. ‘I’m all for Operation SOW.’

‘SOW?’

‘Save Orin Woodville.’

‘Kid, seriously?’

‘Sorry.’

We turn towards the doors.

‘Stay strong,’ I say. ‘Outside, all hell will be set on you. Don’t lose yourself within it.’

I open the door.

LEONIE

BE BRAVE

It’s quiet. The mist is too thick to see our surroundings, though I can see flashes of light, like bolts of lightning in the distance, powerful enough to reach us. I hear people scurrying around us, but despite calling out to them, they don’t respond—running for shelter, maybe. Distant
booms!
are carried through the mist, far away, but enough to rob me of my nerves.

Korren stops and I almost slam into his back.

‘Korren?’ I say in a small voice, and look past him.

His foot has hit against something, though it’s clouded by the mist. It pushes away a little, just enough for me to see it and—

‘Oh God,’ I breathe.

Corpses lay cold on the ground, some with bloody wounds and others with no obvious damage. Jacob holds my hand.

‘Let’s keep moving,’ says Korren. ‘This isn’t—’

Jacob is pulled from me, and I swirl around to see a soldier, eyes crazed, holding a shard of glass to Jacob’s chest.

‘Jacob—!’ I begin.

‘I’m sorry!’ the soldier cries. ‘I have to kill him. If I kill him, it will stop, it will all stop, it will all be OK again. If I kill him. I just have to kill—’

The jacket Korren was wearing sweeps past me, whipping my hair in front of my face, and when I turn I see a beast. He dashes past me before I even have time to blink and knocks the soldier and Jacob to the floor.

‘No!’ I shout, thinking the force of their collision would have caused the glass to pierce Jacob, but when Korren moves away, Jacob is safe and free from the soldier’s grip, and the soldier himself has been pinned down by one of Korren’s fiery talons.

‘Filthy weakling.’ It’s Korren’s voice for sure, but his mouth doesn’t move as he speaks.

The soldier laughs; he laughs until Korren pierces him with the sharp edge of his talon, and then he’s silent.

The beast turns to me.

I realise I’m holding my breath, my body trembling. I know this is Korren, I know that, but I’d forgotten that he’s not a human—he is a being designed to kill. His fiery eyes hold mine, watching me. I find that they’re not as intense as they once were, that they’ve softened somewhat.

‘Are you frightened?’ he asks me.

I shake my head. I am
not
afraid of him. Bewil-dered, sure, but not afraid. ‘H-how are you doing that?’ I say. ‘Ta-talking without moving your big-arse jaw.’

He lowers his head so that it’s on level with mine. ‘When in our kytaen form, we speak by transmitting our thoughts.’

‘Th-then how can I hear you?’ Jacob asks, looking just as bewildered as me.

‘It isn’t limited to our keepers,’ he replies. ‘We can convey our thoughts to as many people as we like. Though, as with oral speaking, we can’t transmit thoughts from a certain distance away, only close by.’

I nod as if I understand.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asks Jacob.

‘N-no. What was wrong with him?’

‘The maiden got to him.’

‘So… that’s what it does to people.’

‘His torment had just begun. I put him out of his misery.’

Jacob stares at the body, shaking. He picks up the shard of glass the soldier was holding, making sure not to cut himself.

I walk over to him and slap his head. ‘You have to be more careful! I thought you were as good as dead!’

He rubs his head. ‘So you hit me?’

‘Because you’re such an idiot!’

‘It’s not like I wanted to be grabbed like that.’

‘
Such
a goddamn idiot.’

‘Are you crying?’

‘Like hell!’

‘You look teary.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You were worried, huh?’

‘No!’

‘You so were.’

‘Shut up!’ I turn on my feet and look back to my compan-ions. ‘Let’s go. Come on!’

‘She was definitely worried,’ I hear Jacob say, and I look back to see Korren nodding his head. I purse my lips and continue forward. Jacob and I barely know each other; in fact, we’ve only spoken a few times. But the thought of something happening to him is an utterly unwelcome one. He trusts Korren and me to get him through this, and so it’s my responsibility to make sure he’s safe.

The mist is impenetrable, so we rely on Korren’s memory and enhanced senses to direct us towards the entrance to the temple that will lead to my dad.

You’ll never find him.

I hate the doubt creeping into my head.

He’s probably dead anyway.

I shake my head. I shouldn’t think that way.

Just like you will be.

No… that isn’t… that isn’t my voice.

You should just die now and save yourself the suffering.

I gasp. ‘K-Korren!’

He’s at my side in a moment. ‘You can hear it?’

‘Is it… is it… the maiden? Can
you
hear it?’

‘No, but I felt your fear.’

He’s going to die, you know. Both of them. Such horrid, excruciating deaths. All because of you.

‘Wh-what do I do? What do I do?’ I say.

‘You can’t do anything,’ Korren tells me, and my eyes widen. ‘You have to try to ignore it. The more you do, the quieter the voice will be—or so I’ve been told.’

The feeling of something foreign speaking inside your own head is like a parasite travelling through your skin, and although I’ve never had the latter experience, I’m guessing this is close to how it feels.

As we walk through the mist, the voice keeps telling me I’m not going to survive. I want to ignore it, but it’s screaming at me, taunting me. I know Korren doesn’t feel any of this, so I look to Jacob beside me, and find he’s staring up at me. In that one instant, I feel more connected to Jacob than I ever have. We both hear the same voice, we are both feeling the unyielding weight of it, but because of that, we’re not alone, we’re facing it together, and that gives us strength.

I knock into something and gasp. I’m facing a woman, a soldier, and I prepare for her to attack me, but she stares at me—no,
through
me—her eyes vacant, hazed.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Jacob says, waving a hand in front of her.

I move back, only to collide with someone else. I swivel round to face a man, his eyes just as hazed as the woman’s. I glance around us, and through the mist I see the ghostly outlines of other figures standing eerily still as if they were statues.

‘The maiden’s fed from them,’ says Korren, ‘from their despair. Their hearts beat, their lungs breathe in air, but their souls have been sucked from them, their very being stolen.’

I have seen many tragic things in the last few hours, images I know will burn into my memory, never to be forgotten. But it’s all gone so quickly, and everything was a rush. Now, though, it is silent, and I can comprehend the reality of this situation, that there is no way we can survive, that we’re just prolonging the moment until we die. As I stare at this man, that voice screaming at me becomes more prominent. He’s a soldier. If he can’t survive, how can I? How can I even hope to survive this haze?

You can’t.

My heart hammers in my chest.

There’s no hope for you. You won’t survive.

Tears well in my eyes and I—

I’m gently pushed, and Korren is at my side, making sure to hold my gaze.

‘You have to be strong,’ he says, ‘you have to be brave, and, though I know how impossible it may seem, you have to discard the possibility of death. That voice in your head telling you that you won’t survive? Ignore it. Just ignore it. You will
not
die today.’

I search his eyes for any untruth, for any misgivings, and when I find only resolve, my sanity returns to me, slowly, and not all together, but enough to retain my determination, determination to live. I clench my fists, and we move through the maze of soulless people.

‘Are you all right, Jacob?’ I ask after a while.

‘…Yeah.’

‘That must’ve been scary, getting attacked like that.’

‘…Yeah.’

‘It won’t happen again, OK? We won’t let it.’

He takes my hand again. ‘We won’t become like them, Leonie. Like those people.’

‘I know.’

‘We can’t. We’re just kids. Kids can’t die like this.’